Open Government in the EUThe Academy of Finland-funded research project “Transparency in the EU: from reaction to manifesto” aims at breaking down the practices assigned to transparency in the EU, laying bare shortcomings and seeking solutions. TrUE project researchers Päivi Leino-Sandberg and Maarten Hillebrandt provide some examples of the types of researcher-institution interactions to which the project has led, and the lessons that can be drawn from them.
In its most recent newsletter, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Expertise Centre for European Law (ECER) dedicates an entry to the recent Leino-Sandberg v Parliament judgment.
A collective of European journalists investigating European Union politics has recently launched a investigative study into the secrecy of Council decision making.
A new court case further strengthen’s the EU institutions’ hands in granting access to a member state’s documents against its will.
In a case against the Commission, initiated by France, the General Court confirmed that the Commission acted lawfully by granting public access to a series of documents submitted to it by the member state. Although France had justified its request for non-disclosure with the invocation of an exception contained in the EU access to documents law, the Commission judged this exception prima facie not to apply to said documents. France brought a judicial protest against this action, which led to the court’s judgment of April, which goes along with the Commission’s decision to disclose the documents against France’s will.